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Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland, the Norwegian duo who make up Royksopp, have been claiming since rumours of the release of ‘Senior’ began that it was always their intention to release a “counterpart” to 2009’s ‘Junior’. And indeed, much of the music for both albums was written during the same sessions, each record intentionally designed as a counterbalance to the other.
This may be true. Equally, it may be true that last year’s ‘Junior’ project gave the band a dilemma. Having spent the noughties crafting serious electronic albums and earning some solid respect from the dance scene as a result, they were able to use that carefully constructed reputation to lure in the likes of Robyn, The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson and Lykke Li as guest vocalists on ‘Junior’. The trouble is, ask a bunch of glittering pop divas to provide star turns on your record, and you’d better come up with some pretty gigantic tunes for them to strut their stuff on, and for this reason ‘Junior’ feels distinctly dancefloor pop.
So while that album was steamrollering the commercial indie dancefloors of 2009, the Royksopp boys were perhaps hanging around in the background, giving a little shudder, and hatching plans to put out a distinctly non-commercial record to set the world right again. For ‘Senior’ is anything but a commercial record. Instrumental from start to finish, its influences are carefully mined from a variety of well-respected instrumental electronic artists over the last 20 years.
‘Tricky Two’, for example, the first track proper after the brief prologue of ‘...And The Forest Began To Sing’, is seven minutes plus of pounding trance that could have come off Leftfield’s seminal ‘Leftism’ way back in 1995. Next up, ‘The Alcoholic’ is a kicked back, lazy hip-hop of a number that either provides the musical description of an alcoholic’s mental state as he goes from first drink of the day (signalled by the sound of a can opening at the beginning) through thorough inebriation to unconsciousness, or is just a name Royksopp gave to an otherwise meaningless piece of music to keep fans debating as to what it all means.
Perhaps easier to glean meaning from is ‘The Drug’, a track which opens gently but in sinister, seedy fashion, with whooshes and whizzes that could be the very sound of a narcotic rushing through a bloodstream shortly after ingestion, quickly reaching all parts of the body. Just as you’d expect, a minute or so in and a pumping beat kicks in, though the tantalisingly subdued level at which the track remains from there onwards suggests we are talking about the sort of drugs John Travolta might drive to a date with Uma Thurman on, rather than your standard disco biscuits.
‘The Fear’ is another brooding threat of a hip-hop beat, while things get a bit more laid back with the acid jazz lounge keys of ‘Coming Home’. Final track ‘A Long, Long Way’, meanwhile, could have been included on Jonsi & Alex’s monster of an instrumental record, 2009’s ‘Riceboy Sleeps’.
Fans turned on by the dance pop of ‘Junior’ might not be so fond of its more grown up counterpart, but there will be plenty of DJs, electronic purists and those looking for a good comedown record who will find ‘Senior’ a worthy investment.
